


Canon Fodder

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lazarus Pit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:06:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9088312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: For two hours, Stephanie thinks Cass is dead. The truth is more complicated.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Cassandra Cain dies, it’s at the hands of her own brother. 

He is not her brother, not in the way most people define it. He is neither related to her by blood, nor a friend so close that they have earned their ranks into the family. No, he is her brother in a way only her, Shiva and Mad Dog himself know. He shares their family tongue. 

He can read body language like words on a page. Paragraphs of words in a gesture. Histories untold in smile. Regrets painted clear in a single flinch.

She wonders, as his blade pierces her heart, what regrets he sees in her. 

It’s her first death, and she is surprised that it isn’t her last. When she wakes in the Lazarus Pit, clawing for air, it feels like she has been twisted inside out, her mind scrambled and rearranged by strange hands. When she sees Shiva, she doesn’t hesitate to attack, carried by something she can’t control. By the time Shiva leaves, slipping out of her frantic grasp, her brain has only started to settle.

For ages, she has wanted to know what dying feels like, to repay her debt she once carried out so many years ago. To pay back Harper’s mother, regardless of what Harper thought of her decision. She never thought she’d come back from it, that her answer would be the thing she died with, but she always thought she would die with satisfaction.

What she feels now, staring at Mad Dog’s body, is not satisfaction. It’s a hum under her skin, a howl in her lungs. A pain in every nerve that shouts she should not be here. 

Dying was easy, she thought. It was a debt she long meant to pay. But coming back? Like this? 

She looks at her brother in all but name and begins to realize why he, a man dunked into the pit after every failure, every death, could do nothing but scream his way to his next demise.

For that, she does not put him in the pit herself. Instead, she dis a grave, puts him in it, marks it with one of her batterangs. As she waits for the nearest Bat operative to arrive, she gathers what sticks and leaves she can in the area and stacks them upon one another, making almost a bed un top of the fresh dirt. A place for her brother to finally rest. 

Her brother is the one to find her, another one, one also reborn in the Green pit just a mile from where she is now. When he sees her, he stops at once, then rushes at her as fast as he can, his arms grabbing her shoulders. When he shakes her, a desperate thing, she can see a frantic look in his green eyes.

“Who the hell did this to you!”

At the time, she thinks it’s the torn gash in the front of her uniform that gives it away. It will be only later, looking at a white stripe in her hair, and a green tint at the edge of her brown eyes, that she realizes otherwise. 

She doesn’t answer, still shaking ever so slightly. Jason doesn’t calm, she can see it in his eyes, but he stops shaking her. Instead, he looks her in the eye.

“Who did this?”

She knows what he really wants to know; who does he need to kill. She shakes her head, and points at the grave. Feels tears come to her eyes, fast and hot. 

They sting like the water of the pit.

“My brother,” she says. Jason stops. He looks at the grave. Then back at Cassandra.

She knows he’s pulling her into a hug before he does it. She doesn’t resist. 

“I’m so sorry Cassie. I’m so sorry. Fuck, look, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.” 

Even unable to see his body language, her face pressed into his chess plate, Cassandra knows he’s lying. 


	2. Chapter 2

For two hours, Stephanie thinks Cass is dead.

 

It might be the worst three months of her life since Tim died.

 

She figures it out from watching the coms. Even though she’s Spoiler no longer, the cape and cowl put away for something more rewarding, she keeps an eye on the frequencies Tim set up if only to keep an eye on her friends. She’s sure Bats knows she’s peering, he’s not dumb, but he hasn’t kicked her yet, so she remains at a distance, keeping an eye on every injury that crops up. When Harper puts on the suit just once more, she’s there in her living room to patch up her twisted ankle. When Duke gets a concussion, Steph is the one who sends him a reminder that he needs to see a real doctor, not a guy in a Bat mask. When Cass fights an entire gang by herself, Stephanie already has the med kit out when she pops into her window.

 

It’s her life now: the friend to Superheroes. She wonders if this is what it feels like for Harper back before she got back into the business. Just waiting on the sidelines for the injured to make their way back home. It’s terrible. Terrible enough that she makes the same request every time someone drags their way to her place after a bout.

 

“Quit. You can do better out of the mask.”

 

She means it because she’s down it herself. She hasn’t spent her time as Stephanie Brown being just a nurse to heroes. Her course work for nursing school are all on her desk, and in her closet are enough cold cases to keep her occupied for the next few years. Batman may claim to be the World’s Greatest Detective, but Stephanie is sure she’s giving him a run for his money with all her case solutions sent into the anonymous police tip line. Twenty cases in one month on top of coursework and clinic volunteering. It’s better than Spoiler ever accomplished. 

 

So she asks. Insistently. Depending on who she’s talking to, she gets a different answer. 

 

For Harper it’s “after this case.”

 

For Duke it’s “maybe in a few years.”

 

For Cass it’s always a solid and resolute “no.”

 

Since Tim, Steph has had dreams about Batman in her living room, looking the same he did that night. Except he’s not always there to speak of Tim. Sometimes it’s Duke. Sometimes it’s Harper. Sometimes it’s Luke or Kate or Clayface. And half of the time, it’s Cass. Cass who works too hard for a murder she was a tool in more than an accomplice. 

 

When word comes over the coms that Orphan’s life signs readings have died, Stephanie is almost sure it’s another nightmare until she realizes she’s awake.

 

Stephanie doesn’t call Harper: she needs all the facts first. Instead she puts on the suit. It used to feel like a second skin; now it feels like a vise. She needs it for one reason only: she can’t get to the tower in civilian wear. When she gets there and finds it empty, it only takes her seconds to pull up Tim’s computer. She reads Cass’ last mission, the voice message Cass left for those she left behind. It’s a mission she chose entirely on her own, no backup, no warning she was going on it at all. An assassin of a mother, a legacy Cass never wanted, a brother causing destruction. All there in the searches for everyone to see.

 

Everyone to see except Batman, Steph realizes. Batman who is so self absorbed in his own problems than to ever see those who brings in under his wing as anything else but soldiers.

 

It takes her fifteen minutes to figure out where Batman’s true headquarters is. Under Wayne Manor: she should have guessed. Stephanie isn’t dumb; she always suspected Bruce as the man behind the mask. This is just confirmation. It takes her thirty minutes more to get there on a stolen cycle, and to break into the cave itself. 

 

When she walks in, she’s ready to burn the place to the ground. Screw Bats and his soldiers. They’re made for something better.  If Bats wants cannon fodder for his war, he better start using himself.

 

Stephanie does not end up burning the place to the ground. Because there, sitting on one of the medical tables Harper was on months ago, is Cass. Cass who is alive.

 

Stephanie doesn’t think. She just runs. Wraps Cass in a tight hug. When she pulls back, she can see someone watching in the distance. Red Hood. Without his helmet off she can’t see his expression.

 

“Steph,” Cass sounds out of it but happy nonetheless. Stephanie looks at her. Suit torn right over his stomach, coated in blood, but no wound. A strand of white in her hair. A tint of green to her brown eyes.

 

“I thought you were dead.” Stephanie grabs Cass’s shoulders. “What happened?”

 

Cass is silent. She looks down at her hands. Stephanie realizes they are shaking. 

 

“I did,” Cass says. Stephanie stares at her until Red Hood pulls his helmet off as well. The skin under his eyes is red and puffy.

  
Stephanie wonders how she never noticed the tint of green behind his irises before. 


End file.
